Archive for October, 2010

23 October 2010

Wat Tyler is another name that frequently comes up when mention is made of
English tax resisters of yore. From what I’ve been able to find out about the
Tyler case, it seems to be more complicated than a case of tax resistance,
though tax resistance seemed to play a part.

Of the Insurrection occasioned by a Poll Tax,
A.D. 1379.

In the reign of Richard,
II. a poll tax was passed
at twelve pence per head, on all above the age of sixteen. This being levied
with severity, caused an insurrection in Kent and Essex.

A Blacksmith, well known by the name of Wat Tyler, was the first who excited
the people to arms. The tax-gatherers coming to this man’s house, while he
was at work, demanded payment for his daughter, which he refused, alledging
that she was in the age mentioned in the act. One of the brutal collectors
insisted on her being a full grown woman; and immediately attempted giving a
very indecent proof of his assertion. This provoked the father to such a
degree, that he instantly struck him dead with a blow of his hammer. The
standers by applauded his spirit; and, one and all, resolved to defend his
conduct. He was considered as a champion in the cause, and appointed the
leader and spokesman of the people.

It is easy to imagine the disorders committed by this tumultuous rabble. The
whole neighborhood rose in arms. They burnt and plundered wherever they came,
and revenged upon their former masters, all those insults which they had long
sustained with impunity.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, The Theory of Property, Chapter VI: "The New Theory" (1865)

New theory: that the motives, and thus the legitimacy of property, must be sought, not in its principle or origin, but in its aims. Presentation of these motives.

Philosophy has had, for three centuries, many institutions and many beliefs: will it be the same for property? If my opinion is of any weight here, I dare to respond that it will not. Jurisprudence has not grasped thus far the causes or the reasons for property, because property, as it has come to reveal itself to us in its principle and in its history, is a fact of collective spontaneity of which nothing would have been able a priori to detect the spirit and the reason; because, on the other hand, it is still in the process of formation, and in this regard experience is incomplete; because, until the last few years, philosophical doubt has struck it only timidly, and because it is necessary, beforehand, to destroy its religion; because in this moment it appears to us rather as a revolutionary force than as an inspiration of universal conscience, and that if it has reversed many despotisms, overcame many aristocracies, one cannot finally say that it has founded anything at all.

The moment has come when property must justify itself or disappear: if I have obtained, these last ten years, some success for the critique that I have made of it, I hope that the reader will not show themselves less favorable today to this exegesis.

I will first observe that if we want to be successful in our research, it is completely necessary that we abandon the road where our predecessors became lost. In order to make sense of property, they returned to the origins; they scrutinized and analyzed the principle; they invoked the needs of personality and the rights of labor, and appealed to the sovereignty of the legislator. That was to place oneself on the terrain of possession. We have seen in Chapter IV, in the summary critique that we have made of all the controversies, into what paralogisms the authors were thrown. Only skepticism could be the fruit of their efforts; and skepticism is today the only serious opinion which exists on the subject of property. It is necessary to change methods. It is neither in its principle and its origins, nor in its materials that we must seek the reason of property; in all those regards, property, I repeat, has nothing more to offer us than possession; it is in its AIMS.

But how to discover the purpose of an institution of which one has declared it useless to examine the principle, the origin and the material? Is it not, to lightheartedly pose an insoluble problem? Property, indeed, is absolute, unconditional, jus utendi et abutendi, or it is nothing. Now, who says absolute, says indefinable, says a thing which one can recognize neither by its limits nor its conditions, neither by its material, nor by the date of its appearance. To seek the aims of property in what we can know of it beginnings, of the animating principle on which it rests, of the circumstances under which it manifests itself, that would be always to go in circles, and to disappear into contradiction. We cannot even bring to testimony the services that it is supposed to render, since those services are none other than those of possession itself; because we only know them imperfectly; because nothing proves besides that we cannot obtain for ourselves the same guarantees, and still better ones, by other means.

Here again, and for the second time, I say that it is necessary to change methods and to start ourselves on an unknown road. The only thing that we can know clearly about property, and by which we can distinguish it from possession, is that it is absolute abusive; Very well! It is in its absolutism, in its abuses that we must seek the aim.

Do not let these odious names of abuse and absolutism, dear reader, frighten you unnecessarily. It is not a question of legitimating what your incorruptible conscience condemns, nor or misleading your own reason in the transcendental regions. This is an affair of pure logic, and since the Collective Reason, the sovereign of us all, is not at all frightened of proprietary absolutism, why should it scandalize you any more? Should we be ashamed, perhaps, of ourselves? Certain minds, from an excess of puritanism, or perhaps a feebleness of comprehension, have posed individualism as the antithesis of revolutionary thought: it was simply to drive the citizen and man from the republic. Let us be less timid. Nature has made man individual, which means rebellious; society in its turn, doubtless in order not to remain at rest, has instituted property; in order to achieve the triad, since, according to Pierre Leroux, every truth is manifested in three terms, man, rebellious and egoistic subject, has dedicated himself to all the fantasies of his free will. It is with these three great enemies, Revolt, Egoism and Good Pleasure that we must live; it is on their shoulders, as on the back of three caryatids, that we will raise the temple of Justice.

All the abuses of which property can make itself guilty, and they are as numerous as profound, can be reduced to three categories, according to the point of view from which one considers property: political abuses, economic abuses, moral abuses. We will examine one after another these different categories of abuse, and, concluding à mesure, we will deduce the AIMS of property, in other words its function and social destiny.

15 October 2010

Mrs. Cobden Sanderson.

In the course of a well-reasoned speech, Mrs. Cobden-Sanderson said: We live
in revolutionary times. The will of the people must prevail. The Portuguese
Royal Family fell because it did not consider this. Berlin has also revolted,
and the revolt there would have been more sanguinary had it not been for
women, who placed themselves in the front — themselves and their children —
and it takes much self-sacrifice to sacrifice your child. Here the women are
also in revolt against the social and economical condition of things, for
similar grievances prevail here to those which prevail in Tariff Reform
Germany.

Mr. Lloyd George will be attacked more severely. Hitherto he has had some
unpleasant moments; now we are going to attack his pocket. We are going to
have our say in the spending of twelve millions on Dreadnoughts, and also on
the reform of Poor Law system. I am a Poor Law guardian, but I am almost
ashamed to own it, for I find the whole system of Poor Law administration is
rotten to the core, and I work harder as such than in presenting petitions
at Downing Street.

Our next move is to pay no taxes. It is the most direct and unanswerable
method. If we are not good enough to vote, we are not good enough to pay. No
vote, no tax. Those little income-tax forms, Form
IV. or
VI., or some other number, will be
just thrown into the basket and not returned. Everyone who perhaps has not
an income to be taxed can have a dog, and then refuse to pay tax.

14 October 2010

Remember good ’ol J. Bracken Lee? Governor of Utah in the 1950s? Decided to
stop paying his federal income tax because he thought the Feds were
unconstitutionally spending good American taxpayer dollars on foreign projects
of various sorts?

The Louisiana doggerel was among more than 500 letters and cards piled across
the desk today of Harold W. Simpson, Lee’s administrative assistant. Lee is a
Republican.

Simpson said all but four letters praised Lee’s statement he will not pay all
his income tax next year, hoping to prod the government into a suit in which
he can challenge the constitutionality of using income tax funds for foreign
aid.

“These letters would surprise a lot of politicians,” said Simpson. “Judging
from them, I believe a nationwide referendum would go against continuing
foreign aid.”

Utah Democrats have blasted Lee’s proposal. They asked the governor to either
retract or resign. Lee refused to do either. State Republicans have said “No
comment.”

Challenged Two

Lee’s assistant said 90 per cent of the letters came from outside Utah. Of
the four opposing Lee’s stand, Simpson challenged two. He said they appeared
to come from the same typewriter, although different names were typed a[t]
the bottom. Both were postmarked Los Angeles.

One congratulatory message came from Vivien Kellems, a Stonington,
Conn., manufacturer who
in 1948 stopped withholding income taxes from employes of her cable grip
firm. She contended the government couldn’t make her serve as an unpaid tax
collector. The government seized $7,819 in penalties from her firm’s bank
accounts, but Miss Kellems and her brother David sued and got most of that
amount back.

Other letters offered to help. Several included small amounts of money to
help finance Lee’s battle.

Lee declared last week he would withhold his income tax on a portion of his
salary. “I shall put my tax in the bank here in Salt Lake City,” he said.
“Not a dollar of it will they get until legality of this case is tested in
the United States Supreme Court.”

Samples from other letters:

Boulder, Colo. — “Good for
you — both for having the courage to stand up to this tax-despotic government
of ours and its paid press, and for BEING RIGHT.”

Santa Ana, Calif. — “When
a man of your stature comes out as you have on such a vital issue it
rekindles the hopes of the American people that all is not lost and that
there is still a chance.”

Houston — “I doubt if you can muster much support — the people are just too
ignorant of what is going on to be impressed, but I urge you to carry on.”

Holloway: Woman's “Polling Booth.”

“We began with a Mud March; I wonder whether we shall end with one!”
So said a marcher last Saturday afternoon; the relentless rain and the
merciless mud gave point to the observation. Neither rain nor mud deterred
the women from their protest procession long ago, nor did they have any
daunting effect on Saturday in the march from Kingsway to Holloway. The
change in attitude of the onlookers was extraordinary and emphasises the
educative influence of such demonstrations. No word of scorn or ridicule
was heard on Saturday; such words have passed; little but amazement remained,
amazement at the courage shown in trying weather conditions.

Truly it was a brave show. Bands and banners lend splendid aid on such
occasions, but the gratifying sight was to see the solidarity and
co-operation of many societies. The Women's Tax Resistance League led the way,
and were followed by the Women's Social and Political Union, the Women's
Freedom League, the New Constitutional Society, and Actresses' League, the
Fabian Women's Group, and, finally, the men's societies; the Men's League
for Women's Suffrage, the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement,
and the Men's Committee for Justice to Women. Faithful friends these, whose
help is always available, and one could not help noticing that some of the
men were bringing up their small sons in the way they should go! Let us hope
that the boys will not have to do much more marching for the Suffrage Cause!

An hour of it! Who can describe the determination and courage needed? But we
arrived, and in a very few minutes the chairman, Miss Christabel Pankhurst,
was in her place on the cart,
surrounded by the speakers. One's eyes were rivetted by the sight of the
tall, self-possessed lady, quiet and undemonstrative, who scarcely twenty-four
hours before had been inside those prison walls. The singing and the
enthusiasm were to reach her in her cell, but the action of the authorities
in releasing Miss Housman enabled her to be the seen instead of the unseen
centre of the demonstration. Her words, too, carried great weight. Humorously
she contrasted the treatment of men voters and of voteless women: agents to
do everything for the men, motors to take them to the polling booth. Turning
to the prison, Miss Housman exclaimed dramatically, “Holloway is
woman's polling booth; it is there that I have been able to register my vote
against a Government that taxes me without representation.” Only words
of courtesy were heard concerning all the officials with whom Miss Housman
had come into contact, and she was cheered to the echo when she declared that,
glad as she was to be outside Holloway, she was ready to go back again to win
the fight for the recognition of woman's citizenship. “If that great act
of justice, the Conciliation Bill, fails to carry next year, there will be
not merely one but hundreds of women in prison to make the nation realise
that justice is not being done.” Thus spoke Mr. Laurence Housman,
whose pride in his sister's devotion to the woman's Cause was shared by those
who listened. Women were only doing what men had gloried in doing in times
past, he added, they were struggling for constitutional liberties; women,
too, had caught the spirit of democracy. Mrs. Despard, heedless of the
drenching rain, made an appeal which touched the hearts of all who heard it;
she rejoiced in the victory won by Miss Housman's courageous act of
self-sacrifice, and said that tax resistance was drawing women together in
a bond as strong as death. She laughed to scorn the idea that men had all
the chivalry and clear-sightedness, women the tenderness and self-sacrifice;
neither sex had a monopoly of these qualities, but she looked for the coming
of the new day when man and woman should stand side by side as equals. Miss
Adeline Bourne, speaking for the actresses, amused the audience by insisting
that if women united in a protest such as Miss Housman had made, the
Government would be powerless to deal with them. Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton
Parkes, who succeeded Miss Pankhurst in the chair as soon as the resolution
had been moved, gave some remarkable facts as to the predicament of the
officials with regard to women tax resisters; amazing differences of
treatment were recorded for the same offence, as also the practical sympathy
of some who have to carry out a disagreeable duty towards women resisters.

The resolution, which was passed unanimously and with enthusiasm, ran as
follows:

That this meeting, held at the gates of Holloway Gaol, congratulates Miss
Clemence Housman on her refusal to pay Crown taxes without representation,
a reassertion of that principle upon which our forefathers won the
constitutional liberties which Englishmen now enjoy, and also upon the
successful outcome of her protest. It condemns the Government's action in
ordering her arrest and imprisonment as a violation of the spirit of the
Constitution and of representative government; and it calls upon the
Government to give votes to women before again demanding from Miss Housman
or any other woman-taxpayer the payment of taxes.

Miss Housman's communication to the Home Secretary, asking for information
as to a definite term of imprisonment, contains so able a statement of her
point of view that it should be widely known. It runs thus:—

That she has resolved to abide by the conditions by law appointed for a
woman who, lacking representation, has personally fulfilled a duty —
moral, social, and constitutional — by refusing to pay taxes into
irresponsible hands. But, while willing to satisfy the requirements of the
law at the expense of her personal liberty to any extent, she learns that
no limit has been set to these claims either by statute or by judgment,
and she believes that it rests with his Majesty's Secretary of State for the
Home Department to rectify what she feels to be a grievance not intended in
such a case as hers. She begs, therefore, that he will be so good as to
define her term of imprisonment, and she desires this not on personal
grounds only, but that, thereby, the comparative cost and value of a woman's
liberty and a man's vote may be officially recorded for the understanding of
others, women and men.

A large and enthusiastic crowd listened in Hyde Park on Sunday morning to
Mrs. Clarkson Swann, who explained fully the Conciliation Bill now before
Parliament, and to Mrs. Emma Sproson, who has recently served six weeks in
Stafford Jail for non-payment of her dog-tax.…

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9 October 2010

Last month I shared an Associated Press
dispatch from 1978 about a then-upcoming meeting of Quakers, Brethren, and
Mennonites who were planning to coordinate war tax resistance. Today, an
article reporting on how the conference went, from the 9 October 1978
Milwaukee Sentinel:

Sects Urge Tax Protest for Peace

Green Lake,
Wis. — A
national meeting of “historic peace churches” — Quakers, Mennonites
and Brethren — agreed Sunday to support those who refuse to pay “the
military portion” of their federal taxes.

The possibly illegal “war tax resistance” position is a giant step for many
in the churches from the passive refusal to bear arms and turning the other
cheek.

Statements such as “we are praying for peace but paying for war” prodded the
more than 300 delegates at a New Call to Peacemaking conference to back what
advocates called an economic moral equivalent to military conscientious
objection.

The lengthy statement also urged total disarmament after arms reduction,
formation of a peace church delegation to President Carter, establishment
of a world peace tax fund and simpler lifestyles.

It is not binding on the 350,000 members of the churches in the
US or the nearly
one million members worldwide.

The four day conference at the American Baptist Assembly here followed 26
regional meetings with participation by more than 1,500 Quakers, Mennonites
and Brethren.

The joint meetings in themselves were a new ecumenical venture in breaking
stereotypes. It was the first time in recent years representatives of the
churches had met in such a conference.

The national conference challenged congregations and church agencies to
consider refusing to pay the military portion of their federal taxes,
generally thought to be about half, as a response to Christ’s call to
radical discipleship.

It also asked them to “uphold war tax resistors with spiritual, emotional,
legal and material support,” and to consider requests of employees who ask
that their taxes not be withheld.

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5 October 2010

Great Protest Meeting Against the Imprisonment of Mr. Mark Wilks.

“No Government Can Stand Ridicule. The Position is Ridiculous!”

The great meeting of indignant protest against the imprisonment of Mr. Mark
Wilks, held at the Caxton Hall on September 25, under the auspices of the
Women’s Tax Resistance League, will be not only memorable but epoch-making.
The fight for woman’s citizenship in “free England” has led to the
imprisonment of a man for failing to do what was impossible. Throughout
the meeting the humor of the situation was frequently commented upon, but
the serious aspect was most strongly emphasized. Sir John Cockburn, who
presided, struck a serious note at the outset; for anything, he said, that
touched the liberty of the citizen was of the gravest importance. He
remarked that it was the first occasion on which he had attended a meeting
to protest against the action of law.

The resolution of protest was proposed by
Dr. Mansell Moullin, whose
many and continued services to their Cause are warmly appreciated by all
Suffragists, in a very able speech, and ran as follows:—

That this meeting indignantly protests against the imprisonment of Mr. Mark
Wilks for his inability to pay the tax on his wife’s earned income, and
demands his immediate release. This meeting also calls for an amendment of
the existing Income-tax law, which, contrary to the spirit of the Married
Women’s Property Act, regards the wife’s income as one with that of her
husband.

A Husband the Property of His Wife.

Dr. Moullin expressed his
pleasure in supporting his colleague,
Dr. Elizabeth Wilks, in the
protest against the outrage on her husband. The case, he said, was not a
chapter out of “Alice in Wonderland,” but a plain proof that,
although imprisonment for debt has been abolished in England, a man may be
deprived of his liberty for non-payment of money which was not his, and which
he could not touch. The only argument that could be used was that Mr. Wilks
was the property of his wife. Twice distraint had been made on the furniture
of Mrs. Wilks, the third time the authorities carried off her husband; it is
the first occasion on which it has been proved that a husband is the property
of his wife. The law allows a man to put a halter round the neck of his wife,
take her to the market-place and sell her, and this has been done within
recent years; but there is no law which allows the Inland Revenue authorities
to sell a husband for the benefit of his wife. Governments, he added, can
stand abuse, but cannot stand ridicule, and the position with regard to
Dr. Wilks and her husband is
both ridiculous and anomalous. The serious question behind the whole matter
was how far anyone is justified in resisting the law of the land. The
resister for conscience’ sake is the martyr of one generation and the saint
of the next. Dr. Moullin
doubted whether the Hebrews or Romans of old would recognise what their laws
had become; we are ashamed of the outrageous sentences for trivial offences
passed by our forefathers; our children will be ashamed of the sentences
passed to-day. Everything in the law connected with women required
reconstruction from the very foundation, declared
Dr. Moullin. Constitutional
methods, like Royal Commissions, were an admirable device for postponing
reform; all reformers were unconstitutional; they had to use unconstitutional
methods or leave reform alone. The self-sacrifice of an individual makes a
nation great; that nation is dead when reformers are unwilling to sacrifice
themselves.

No Man Safe.

Mr. George Bernard Shaw was the next speaker, and gave a characteristically
witty and autobiographical address. He said that this was the beginning of
the revolt of his own unfortunate sex against the intolerable henpecking
which had been brought upon them by the refusal of the Government to bring
about a reform which everybody knew was going to come, and the delay of
which was a mere piece of senseless stupidity. From the unfortunate Prime
Minister downwards no man was safe. He never saw his wife reflecting in a
corner without some fear that she was designing some method of putting him
and his sex into a hopeless corner. He never spoke at suffrage gatherings.
He steadily refused to join the ranks of ignominious and superfluous males
who gave assistance which was altogether unnecessary to ladies who could well
look after themselves.

“If my wife did that to me, the very moment I came out of prison I would
get another wife. It is indefensible.” — George Bernard Shaw

Under the Married Women’s Property Act the husband retained the
responsibility of the property and the woman had the property to herself. Mr.
Wilks was not the first victim. The first victim was
G.B.S. The
Government put on a supertax. That fell on his wife’s income and on his own.
The authorities said that he must pay his wife’s supertax. He said, “I do
not happen to know the extent of her income.” When he got married he
strongly recommended to his wife to have a separate banking account, and she
took him at his word. He had no knowledge of what his wife’s income was. All
he knew was that she had money at her command, and he frequently took
advantage of that by borrowing it from her. The authorities said that they
would have to guess at the income; then the Government passed an Act, he
forgot the official title of it, but the popular title was the Bernard Shaw
Relief Act. They passed an Act to allow women to pay their supertax. In spite
of this Act, ordinary taxpayers were still apparently under the old
regime, and as Mrs. Wilks would not pay the tax on her own
income Mr. Wilks went to gaol. “If my wife did that to me,” said
Mr. Shaw, “the very moment I came out of prison I would get another
wife. It is indefensible.”

Women, he added, had got completely beyond the law at the present time. Mrs.
[Mary] Leigh had been let out, but he presumed that after a brief interval
for refreshments she would set fire to another theatre. He got his living by
the theatre, and very probably when she read the report of that speech she
would set fire to a theatre where his plays were being performed. The other
day he practically challenged the Government to starve Mrs. Leigh, and in the
course of the last fortnight he had received the most abusive letters which
had ever reached him in his life. The Government should put an end to the
difficulty at once by giving women the vote. As he resumed his seat Mr. Shaw
said: “I feel glad I have been allowed to say the things I have here
to-night without being lynched.”

Bullying Fails.

Mr. Laurence Housman laid stress on the fact that the Government was
endeavouring to make Mrs. Wilks, through her affection, do something she
did not consider right. Liberty could only be enjoyed when laws were not an
offence to the moral conscience of a people. Laws were not broken in this
country every day because they were not practicable. Every man, according to
law, must go to church on Sunday morning, or sit two hours in the stocks; it
was unlawful to wheel perambulators on the pavement. If the police were
compelled to administer all the laws on the Statute Book, England would be a
hell. To imprison Mr. Wilks for something which he had not done and could not
do was as sane as if a servant were sent to prison because her employer
objected to lick stamps under the Insurance Act. The Government had tried
bullying, but women had shown that it did not pay. Self-respecting people
break down a law by demonstrating that it is too expensive to carry.

Question for the Solicitor to the Treasury.

The legal aspect was the point specially dealt with by Mr. Herbert Jacobs,
chairman of the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage. He said that it was
stupidity, not chivalry, which deprived the husband under the Married
Women’s Property Act of 1882 of the right to his wife’s earnings, but did not
relieve him of responsibility to pay for her. Imprisonment for debt has been
abolished; but if it could be shown that a man had the means to pay and
refused to pay, he could be sent to prison for contempt of court. Mr. Jacobs
suggested that the Solicitor to the Treasury should be asked to reply to the
following question: “What has Mr. Wilks done or omitted to do that he
should be imprisoned for life?” The law, he added, does not compel a man
to do that which he cannot possibly perform. The action of the Internal
Revenue authorities may be illegal; it certainly is barbarous and ridiculous.

Bad Bungling

Mr. H[enry].G[eorge]. Chancellor pointed out that the Married Women’s
Property Act was an endeavour by men to remove injustice to women, but
because they did not
realise the injustices from which women suffer and avoided the woman’s point
of view, they bungled badly. No one can respect a ridiculous law, and the
means to be taken in the future to avoid making ridiculous laws, must be to
give women the right to make their opinions effectively heard through the
ballot-box. Mr. Chancellor said that he had investigated 240 Bill[s] laid on
the table of the House, and had found that 123 were as interesting to women
as much as to men; twenty-one affected women almost exclusively; six had
relation to the franchise. “When we consider these Bills,” he added,
“we rule out the whole experience and knowledge of women. We must
abolish sex privilege as it affects legislation. I appeal to men who are
Antis to consider the Wilks case, which is possible just so long as we
perpetuate the huge wrong of the continued disenfranchisement of women.”

Refinement of Cruelty

In a moving speech Rev.
Fleming Williams declared that the case of
Dr. Wilks and her husband
ought to appeal to men all over the country. He spoke of the personal
interviews he had had with Mr. Wilks in the presence of the warder, and of
the effect of imprisonment upon him. It was impossible to contemplate
without horror the spectacle of the Government’s attempt to overcome the
wife’s resistance by the spectacle of her husband’s sufferings. If she
added to his pain by humiliating surrender, it would lower the high ideal he
cherishes of her principles. “She dare not do it; she will not do it!”
exclaimed Mr. Williams. He added that he had had an opportunity of waiting
upon the Inland Revenue Board and tried to show them how their action appears
to outside people. He had suggested that, in order to bring the law into
harmony with justice, representative public men in co-operation with the
Board should approach the Treasury to secure an alteration in the law.
“But,” declared Mr. Williams, “if women are made responsible by
law it will not bring the Government an inch nearer the solution of the
difficulty. They may imprison women for tax resistance, but married men would
not stand it. The only way is to say to
Dr. Wilks, “We will give
you the right to control the use we intend to make of your money.”

The resolution was passed unanimously with great enthusiasm, and thus ended
a meeting that will be historic.

The Campaign.

A great campaign is being carried on for the release of Mr. Mark Wilks.

On Saturday afternoon, September 28, the Women’s Tax Resistance League held
a meeting, followed by a procession in the neighborhood of the prison, and on
Sunday there was a large and very sympathetic meeting in Hyde Park. Mrs.
Mustard took the chair. Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard and Mrs. [Margaret] Parkes
were the speakers. The resolution demanding the release of Mr. Wilks was
carried unanomously. Nightly meetings are held in Brixton by the Men’s
Federation for Women’s Suffrage.

A great demonstration will take place on Saturday afternoon next,
at 3.30, in Trafalgar-square. Members of the Women’s Freedom League
and all sympathisers are asked to come and to bring their friends. There
will be a large attendance of London County Council teachers — more
than 3,000 of whom have signed a petition against the arrest of Mr. Wilks.

A deputation of Members of Parliament and other influential men is being
arranged by Sir John Cockburn to wait upon Mr. Lloyd George and to see him
personally about the case.

Ignominious Defeat of Law-Makers.

We hope earnestly that before this issue of our
Vote appears, news of the relase of Mark Wilks
will be brought to us. It seems to us impossible that the authorities of the
country can persist in their foolish and cruel action. But, in the meantime
and in any case, it may be well for us seriously to consider the situation.
We are bound together, men and women, in a certain order. For the
maintenance of that order, it has been found necessary for communities and
nations all over the world to impose laws upon themselves. In countries that
call themselves democratic, it is contended that the civil law is peculiarly
binding, because the people not only consent, but, where they have sufficient
understanding, demand that the laws which bind them shall, in certain
contingencies, be made or changed or repealed according to their need, and
because by their voice they place in seats of power the men whom they believe
to be honest and wise enough to carry out their will.

That, at least, is the ideal of democracy. For several generations the British
nation has claimed the honour of being foremost in the road that leads to its
achievement. We (or rather the men of the country) boast of our free
institutions, of our free speech, of the liberty of the individual within the
law to which he has consented, of the right to fair trial and judgment by his
peers when he is accused of offences against that law; above all — and
now we have the difference between a democratically governed country and one
under despotic rule — not to be liable to punishment for the omission
of that which he is unable to perform.

It seems clear and simple enough — what any intelligent schoolboy knows;
and yet our so-called Liberal Government, which flaunts in every direction
the flag of democracy, which proclaims, here severely and there with dulcet
persuasion, that liberty for all is their aim, and that “the will of
the people shall prevail,” does not hesitate, when it is question of a
reform movement which it dislikes and despises, to set itself in direct
opposition to its own avowed principles.

For what do the arrest and imprisonment of Mark Wilks mean? We are perfectly
certain that it will not last long. Stupid and inept as it has been, the
Government, we are certain, will not risk the odium which would justly fall
upon it if this outrage on liberty went on. A Government which has much at
stake and which lives by the breath of popular opinion cannot afford to
ignore such strong and healthy protest as is being poured out on all sides.
To us, who are in the midst of it, that which seems most remarkable is the
growth of public feeling. In the streets where processions are nightly held,
we were met at first by banter and rowdyism. “A man in prison for the sake
of Suffragettes!” To the boy-mind of the metropolis, on the outskirts of
many an earnest crowd, that seemed irresistibly funny; but thoughtfulness is
spreading; into even the boy-mind, the light of truth is creeping. If it had
done nothing else, the imprisonment of Mark Wilks has certainly done this
— it has educated the public mind. It is not we, the Suffragists alone
— it is women and men in hosts who are asking, What do these things mean?

On the part of these in our movement they mean courage, determination,
skilful generalship — aye, and speedy triumph. On the part of our
opponents, perplexity and failure.

“This is defeat, fierce king, not victory,” said Shelly’s
Prometheus, when from his rock of age-long pain he hurled heroic defiance at
his tormentor.

The ills with which thou torturest gird my soul
To fresh resistance till the day arrive
When these shall be no types of things that are.

Woman, in this professedly liberty-loving country, may echo the hero’s
words. Defeat, in very truth, for what can the authorities do? Their position
is an extraordinary one. In a lucid interval, politicians — not clearly,
it may be, understanding the issues involved — passed the Married
Women’s Property Act. We believe there were no Antis then to guide and
encourage woman-fearing man. This may partly account for it. In any case,
the deed was done. Married, no less than single women and widows, became
owners of their own property and lords of their own labour. It would have
saved the country from much unnecessary trouble if, then, politicians had
gone a step further, if they had recognised woman’s personal responsibility
as mother, wage-earner or property-owner, and had dealt with her directly.
Love of compromise, unfortunately, weighs too deeply on the soul of the
modern politician for him to be able to take so wise a course, and it is left
for his successor to unravel the tangle.

What are the authorities to do? While, with threats of violence and dark
hints of disciplined, organised resistance, Ulster defies them, Suffragists
by almost miraculous endurance are breaking open prison doors. While brutal
men, under the very eyes of a Minister of the Crown, are torturing and
insulting women, in token, we presume, of their devotion to him, the story
of the wrongs of women — not only these but others — is being noised
abroad. None of our recent publications has been bought so freely as “The
White Slave Traffic.” While well-known women tax-resisters are left at
large, a man who has not resisted, but who respects women and will not coerce
his wife, is arrested and locked up in prison without trial, and, since he
cannot pay, for an indeterminate time. A pretty mess indeed, which will take
more than the subtlety of an Asquith, a Lloyd George or a McKenna to render
palatable to the men on whose votes they depend for their continuance in
power! In a few days they will be faced with a further difficult problem.
Women are prepared to resist, not only the Income, but also the Insurance Tax.

Let us see what the alternatives are. Mark Wilks may be let out as Miss
[Clemence] Housman was; but that will not help the Government. It is a poor
satisfaction to a creditor of national importance to know that his debtor is
or has been in prison. He wants his money, and the example of one resister
may be followed by many others. If so, that big thing the Exchequer suffers.
The creditor may, when Parliament comes together, pleading urgency, pass an
Act which will make married women responsible for their own liabilities. That
might result in a revolt of married women which would have serious
consequences. Men who live at ease with their children, shepherded by
admirable wives, would find it, to say the least, inconvenient to be deprived
periodically of their services. And these men might be in the position of
Mark Wilks. They might not be able to pay, while their wives might have no
goods on which distraint could be made. Truly the position would be pitiable.

Over the Insurance Act the same difficulties will arise. What is a distraught
Government to do?

The answer is clear. The one and only alternative that lies before our
legislators is at once to take steps whereby women — workers, mothers,
property-owners — shall become citizens. That done, we will pay our
taxes with alacrity; we will bring our quota of service to the State that
needs our aid, and the unmannerly strife between man and woman will cease.

In the meantime, the law and the legislator are defeated ignominiously, and
it is becoming more and more evident that, in a very near future, “the
will of the people shall prevail.”

The “Favouritism” of the Law.

It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to devise a situation which
would show more clearly than does the Wilks’ case, how absolutely incapable
is the average man of grasping a woman’s point of view, or of realising her
grievances and legal disabilities. For seventy years men have been cooly
appropriating the Income-tax refunded by the Inland Revenue on their wives
incomes. Did anybody ever hear of a man raising a protest against the state
of the law which made it possible and legal for a husband to do this? My own
experience covers a good many years of Income-tax work, and the handling of
some hundreds of cases, but the only complaints I have ever heard have come
from the defrauded wives. I have observed that the men always accepted the
position with the utmost equanimity. But now, when by the exercise of
considerable ingenuity, women have contrived, for once in a way, to put the
boot on the other leg, the Press and the public generally is filled with
horror, and the air is rent with shrieks of protest from the male sex.

The Evening News sapiently remarks that women
might have been expected to have more sense than to seek to show up a law
which is “so obviously in their favour”! And
The Scotsman says: “One would imagine that
the last thing the Wilks’ case would be used for is to illustrate
the grievance which woman suffers under the law. Here two laws combine
to favour the wife and inflict wrong upon the husband.” And it
goes on to deride women and “their inherent illogicality.” Here
we see clearly manifest the absolute incapacity of man to realise the
existence of any injustice until it touches himself or his fellow man. Nothing
could well be more logical than the holding of a man responsible for
non-payment of his wife’s Income-tax, since it is the necessary and inevitable
corollary of the theory that a wife’s income belongs to her husband, and that
all refunds of Income-tax must be made to him, and to him only. It
is in accordance with logic and also with strict business principles that no
person can claim the advantages of his legal position while repudiating its
disadvantages. Thus if a man dies leaving money, his son cannot claim to take
that money and at the same time repudiate his father’s debts. He must accept
the one with the other. And in exactly the same way, women are no longer
going to allow men to claim their legal right to demand re-payment of their
wives’ Income-tax, unless they also accept their legal responsibility for
its non-payment. The game of heads-I-win-tails-you-lose is played out, and
the sooner men realise this fact the better it will be for everybody. The
“logic” of The Scotsman and its
contemporaries is no longer good enough for women. The law must be forced to
take its course where men are concerned as it does where women are concerned.

As to the provisions of the Income-tax Act favouring the wife and
wronging the husband, I can only say that Mr. Wilks’ case is the
first in all my experience where these provisions acted adversely to the
husband. And even in this case they only so acted because women had laid
their heads together to bring it about, and thus show how little men relish a
law of their own making when it begins to act on the boomerang principle, and
they find themselves “hoist with their own petard.”

A few actual instances, casually selected out of a large number, will show
how wives have hitherto been “favoured.” A man and his wife have
£100 a year each, taxed (at
1s.
2d.
in the £) by deduction before they receive it. There are four children,
on each of whom the husband is entitled to claim a rebate of £10 a year.
(The wife, it should be noted, can never claim any rebate whether
she has a dozen or a score of children. And if a widow, having children,
re-marries, the rebate on these children goes to thei step-father.)
Consequently the husband can, and does, reclaim not only the tax deducted
from his own income, i.e. £5
16s.
8d., but also the £5
16s.
8d.
deducted from his wife’s income. So he really pays no tax at all, and gains £5
16s.
8d.
while she loses a similar amount. Thus the actual position is, that the wife
is only worth £94 a year, while he is worth £106 a year, though
nominally their incomes are the same. If single, each could claim
repayment of £5 16s.
8d., therefore marriage
represents a loss to the wife, but a profit to her husband.

A member of the Women’s Freedom League was forced to leave her husband on
account of his misconduct, and to bring up and educate her children without
any financial aid from him. But for a number of years he regularly drew the
“repayment” of her Income-tax, until a merciful Providence removed him from
this mundane sphere, by which time it was calculated that she had lost, and
he had gained, about £200. At his death she, of course, ceased to be a legal
“idiot,” and was allowed to claim her repayment for herself. I may remark
here that the Income-tax Act has a favourite method of classifying certain
sections of the community, namely, as “idiots, married women, lunatics and
insane persons.” I don’t know precisely what the difference is betwen a
“lunatic” and an “insane person,” but doubtless there is a difference, though
unintelligent persons might think they were synonymous terms.

As regards the point of resemblance between the “idiot” and the “married
woman,” it is rather obscure, but after intense mental application I have
succeeded in locating it; and really when somebody illuminates it for you it
becomes clear as daylight. It is quite evident to me that our
super-intelligent legislators are convinced that the woman who is capable of
going and getting married is an utter “idiot,” and in fact next door to a
“lunatic.” Well, men ought to know their own sex, and if they say
that the women who marry them are idiots, it must be true, I suppose. We may
therefore take it that a woman evinces her intelligence by remaining
unmarried. I ought humbly to explain that, being married myself, I am only
one of the idiots, and therefore my ideas on any subject must not be taken to
have the slightest value. But to return to our instances of “favouritism,”
another man has £230 a year and his wife £170 a year. She pays Income-tax
(deducted before receipt) to the tune of £9
18s.
4d., and he pays
2s.
6d.. It sounds impossible,
perhaps; but when you know the rules it is quite simple. To begin with, he
gets an abatement of £160, which leaves him with £70. Then he gets a further
abatement of £67 for insurance premiums, a great part of which premiums are
paid by his wife on her own life. This leaves him with a taxable
income of slightly over £3, on which he pays
9d. in the £1., amounting to
half-a-crown. This couple have no children. If they had any he would begin
not only to pay no tax himself, but to have some of hers repaid to
him. She, however, under any circumstances, will always be mulcted of the £9
18s.
4d.; unless she becomes a
widow, when she will be able to reclaim the whole amount. (The official forms
supplied to those reclaiming Income-tax read: “A woman must state whether
spinster or widow.”) If we reverse the financial position
of this couple, and assume that she receives £230 and he only £170, she would
then be paying £13 8s.
4d. Income-tax. Contrast this
with his payment of half-a-crown in the same circumstances, and observe how
highly she is “favoured.” He, however, would then pay nothing and
would receive a “refund” of nearly £3
10s. a year.

A very enterprising and smart young fellow was able to treat himself to a
really nice motor-cycle — not the sort that has a side-car for a
lady — out of his wife’s “repaid” tax; repaid to
him, I mean. He can’t support himself, but depends on her, as she has just
about enough for them both to rub along on, though she can’t afford
luxuries for herself, and wouldn’t have paid for his. But the Inland Revenue
gave him her money quite cooly and without the slightest fuss.

The “Scotsman” will be pleased to hear that this poor husband manages to bear
up quite bravely under his “wrongs,” and seems indeed to get a considerable
amout of satisfaction out of them. His wife, I am truly sorry to say, doesn’t
properly appreciate the favour shown to her by the law.

But then men are naturally brave, and women are by nature a thoroughly
ungrateful lot I expect, if they could only see themselves as
The Scotsman and The
Evening News see them.

Forerunners.

In this connection it is interesting to note that three years ago two members
of our Edinburgh Branch, the Misses N[annie]. and J[essie]. Brown, walked
from Edinburgh to London, chatting of Woman Suffrage with the villagers all
along the line of route southwards, many of whom had then not even heard
about this question. They started from Edinburgh in June and reached London
before the end of July. A further point of interest is that the father of
these ladies was the last political prisoner in Claton Gaol in 1859. Mr.
Brown’s offence was his refusal to pay the Annuity Tax which he considered an
iniquitous imposition. He was imprisoned for one week, but received the
treatment of a political prisoner; he had the satisfaction of knowing that
his protest led to the repeal of the Annuity Tax. The next people who
committed a political offence in Edinburgh were two Suffragettes, who last
year — fifty-two years later than Mr. Brown’s incarceration — were
imprisoned, but were not treated as political prisoners.

In Hyde Park.

Notwithstanding the showers a good crowd gathered on Sunday to hear Mrs.
Despard, who spoke of the anomalies existing in our laws affecting women
and taxation, and referred at length to the imprisonment of Mr. Mark Wilks
for his inability to pay his wife’s taxes on her earned income. A resolution
expressing indignation at this and demanding Mr. Mark Wilks’ release was
passed with only five dissentients. The chair was taken by Mrs. Mustard,
who told the audience of the indignation felt by the Clapton neighbours and
friends of Mr. and Dr.
Elizabeth Wilks over his imprisonment.

…On Friday evening we had our usual open-air meeting. Mr. Hawkins kindly
chaired, and Mrs. Tanner spoke with her usual excellency, bringing in the
“Wilks” case in her speech, as a specimen of anomaly in law in which the
man suffers. The crowd was sympathetic as regarded “poor old Wilks,”
but was swayed otherwise by mistaken ideas of our aims and motives.…

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